


The Wretched Blood

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Religious, Anal Sex, Angst, Brief Attraction to a Minor?????????, Bruce and Tim make appearances also but they're not important, Church Sex, Confessional, Double Life, Emotional Hurt, Falling In Love, Father Todd Plays Kira, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Going to Hell, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Priest Kink, Priests, Religious Content, Revenge, kinda sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12614824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: Like a sinner in a church, he mused. God must have a sense of humor.





	The Wretched Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307569) by [xserenity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xserenity/pseuds/xserenity). 



> I’ve never done a remix fic before, but xserenity's work “Sin” inspired me in a lot of ways. This thing I present to you here is a labor of love wrought from the depths of my poor, gay, sacrilegious soul. ;P
> 
> Warning for mentioned non-con / child abuse / underage sex, all of which occur offscreen. Warning for idyllic thoughts involving a minor, though, which occur very much onscreen. Also included in this sin dump: Blasphemy x1000, a ship with an age difference, religious guilt, a complete tearing apart of DC canon, and porn with plot.
> 
> While I Wrote:
> 
> I’m Not Jesus – Apocalyptica  
> Don’t Stop – Innerpartysystem  
> The Hand That Feeds – Nine Inch Nails  
> Wight Spider – Marilyn Manson  
> Witness – Mindless Self Indulgence  
> Undisclosed Desires – Muse  
> Fix Me – 10 Years  
> Outside – Staind
> 
> And, as usual, many more not mentioned here. If you’re super bored, the full playlist is on my Spotify @officialronanlynch under the title “Religiosity.”

_I’m not Jesus, I will not forgive._

* * *

 

He made it his business to put forth a good face, if only to cover the gory tracks of sacrilege he left in his wake. Not two days ago, for instance, he’d choked the life out of a swindler who was hell-bent (he liked to joke) on robbing the elderly, the disabled—those not highly advantaged. These incidents happened far too often to be considered situationally benevolent, whether one wanted to agree that what he was doing was his God-given right to make the world a better place. No matter the opinion, he had his reasons. There was one thing he believed that he kept hidden from everyone who mattered, and it was, simply put, that some people deserved to die.

Father Todd lived in the upstairs studio. Below, down carpeted stairs the color of wine, was a lofty church building, its bones spread wide to give it a cavernous appearance completed by a vaulted ceiling. Rows of the same wine-colored pews sat below, waiting for another day when they would bear the weight of saints and sinners in equal capacity.

His earliest patrons were usually the sinners, his latest the saints, who came dressed in rags and bathed in dirt, often smelling of smoke, sex, alcohol, or all of these at once. They hardly attended services, not that Jason minded, because that wasn’t what mattered when it all boiled down. No number of good Samaritan-isms could erase the stains of child abuse, of sexual misconduct, of all sins beneath the sun from which his morning congregation ducked away under the forgiveness of prayer. They beseeched pity from God, or perhaps from Jason—whoever should have been the most likely to absolve them of their disgraces. Little did they know, he would bank on neither.

It was his job to help the needy, but that didn’t stop him from balking at the sound of the wide double-doors below creaking open. Though his own private loft remained locked during the night, the church itself did not, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know the types who dragged themselves into the sanctuary at an hour like this.

Jason checked the clock. Two in the morning. He hadn’t been to sleep yet.

His descent down the stairs didn’t seem to arouse shock from the lonely patron, who was bowed at the alter with his hands clasped and trembling. When Jason approached, he could see that the man’s grip on himself was tense, as his nails were digging into the tender flesh on the back of each hand.

Far be it from the Father to interrupt someone in prayer, he thought, prepared to turn and mind duties of his own when the patron called out to him in a hushed tone. “My child,” he acknowledged, somewhat begrudgingly, and approached the alter to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Did you need help tonight?”

“I don’t know why else I’d be here,” the stranger answered. When he looked up at him from where he sat, perched on his knees in the shadows of the pulpit, Jason thought for a moment he might have been blessed, in all his inefficacies, with the sight of an angel. Not quite in a religious sense, only in an earthly one, but then again, he didn’t think he’d be able to tell the difference.

The boy was fifteen, sixteen at most. He had an angular face, full lips that were bitten and chapped, and eyes like nothing Jason had ever seen in person before. If heaven had a color, surely that’d be it.

“Valid point,” he began, removing his hand when the boy stood, “but my concern is if you need _my_ help.”

“Oh,” the boy said, as if ashamed. Meek and meager didn’t suit him, but Jason rather liked that it didn’t. “I’m sorry, I just… I’ve never been in one of these before. A church, I mean.”

Jason bit back the word “understandable” and smiled in what he hoped was a comforting way. From what he’d been told in days past, _comforting_ didn’t exactly synthesize well with the harsh planes of his face, but the kid didn’t seem daunted, at least.

“God doesn’t turn a blind eye to any of his children, even those who don’t worship.” If that hadn’t been what he preached, Father Todd would be in far deeper trouble with his mortal congregation than with any god of irony or sound judgement, should there have been one.

“My name’s Richard Grayson,” the boy said suddenly, extending a hand but looking him fully in the face as though there was something reaching out for him there, instead. His expression was almost one of wonderment, which Jason appreciated. “Everyone calls me Dick.”

He took the proffered hand between both of his. “Nice to meet you, Dick. I am Father Todd, the overseer of this place, so to speak.”

“Just the mortal one.” Dick must have been joking, but his eyes and smile were void of humor.

“Right,” Jason agreed, furrowing his brow. “Are you looking for the confessional? Or just for a helping hand?”

“Neither,” Dick said too quickly, taking his hand back and wincing at the movement. “Not from you, I mean. I don’t think. I was only—”

“Don’t fret, child,” Jason offered, as he was conditioned to say, even though the words never felt right in the mouth of a man like himself. “If you ever need a friendly ear, you can come to me.”

Dick said nothing, only looked him over, considered him, turned him around in his mind and poked his tongue out between his teeth thoughtfully to cement the image. At last, he spoke. “Thank you, Father Todd. I didn’t mean to bother you. You can go.”

“I don’t need to.”

“You should. It’s late.”

“Should I have to tell you that forgiveness never sleeps?”

Dick cast his eyes downward, then somewhere off to the side. “Not looking for forgiveness,” he said softly. “Not yet.”

* * *

 

_I’ll buy my way to talk to God._

* * *

 

Jason held mass on Wednesdays and Sundays, but it was only on the latter of these days in the evening service when Dick sat in the ranks. He wore an obvious hand-me-down suit a couple sizes too big, and his dark hair was combed neatly back, unlike how it had been the night they’d met, when Gotham winds had sunk their frosty fangs into it until it was tipped in ice, facing every which way.

Tonight’s sermon invited the same stone-faced acquiescence as always. People were directed to stand, sit, pray, sit, eat, drink, stand, pray. At the end they all filed out, one ghostly, unforgiven face after another. Jason didn’t mind these people, per se, but he did not like them, either. After all, he wondered, who were you when you drifted zombie-like through your days, hoping that eventually something magnificent and mighty will whisk you away?

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God, only that he was sure he couldn’t be sure. Still, the way Dick smiled at him when he approached after the sermon, with lights in those pretty blue eyes, he felt like some type of divine intervention must have brought him to this moment. He felt he’d been blessed to look at him, to watch as he batted his lashes and sucked his lower lip in thought. And then, not a minute later, he felt the repulsing stab of realization at what he’d been thinking, what he’d been feeling, if only for a second.

Jason wanted to puke at his own shortcomings. It was unforgivable, the way he had _leered_ at him. Must have, anyway, for all the strength he felt behind his gaze when he looked down at that mouth, watched him smile like—like a child.

God, he truly was an awful creature, wasn’t he?

“Father Todd,” Dick started, pulling him from his thoughts, “I have a question.”

He tugged idly at his robe’s sleeve, noticed Dick’s big doe eyes follow the movement with interest, and promptly dropped his hand to his side. “Ask, then.”

“I was hoping you would show me around town.”

“I don’t think that’s my jurisdiction,” he said sagely, dipping his head in a reserved nod. “Your parents—”

“Don’t have them,” Dick interjected, mouth a line.

Jason felt the way the boy stared at him, waited for another excuse to shut down. Suddenly it felt like those eyes were prying right through his skin, down to his bone. “Your friends...”

“I’m new here. I don’t have any.”

“Where do you stay?”

“With a man,” Dick answered, licking his lips with an infinitesimal flicker of movement and gauging Jason’s reaction as if he were puppeteering his heartstrings from right where he stood, five-foot-something in hand-me-down clothes. “…Sometimes,” he added, reserved and shy in tone. “He took me under his wing, in a way.”

“Then I’m sure _he_ can show you around.” Jason took a step back, watched the sunlight beam past him and strike Dick’s face in slatted lines from the crook of the blinds. At the front of the pulpit, the ornate glass window shone muted watercolor on the carpet some feet away, and Jason looked toward that instead.

“He doesn’t go out much,” Dick tried, putting a hand on Jason’s arm as leverage. “He’s very reclusive. I spend most of my time at the orphanage across the road from here, anyway, because he doesn’t wanna go through the trouble of making it legal.”

Jason wondered if this man was someone to whom he ought to pay a visit. A visit with his forty-five caliber, shiny and silver and cold in his pocket. Maybe a visit with his knife—the one he used when he wanted to make them hurt, make them realize what atrocities they’d committed against God. He saw, for a moment, a vision of him holding the knife to his own throat.

“I’m sure he’ll find time,” he said with an air of finality that left Dick wilting behind him as he walked away. He hadn’t meant to be short, but it was all he could do to keep from staining his hands with his own blood.

He didn’t see him for weeks after that.

The schoolyard, attached to the orphanage by both proxy and one narrow sidewalk, released the younger children at noon and the older ones at two. It took several days of hovering nondescriptly outside the church doors, watching the later crowd release his tentative fall from grace from the day’s studies, for him to notice a change in pattern. Usually, Dick went back to that shell of a home with his books in hand and no acquaintances to speak of, but there were instances when he didn’t.

That struck Jason, the times Dick disappeared altogether. It made his skin crawl and his mind wander, hoping to whatever was listening that he was all right.

Dick finally arrived in the cathedral again late one Sunday night, well past when service had ended and all the especially penitent stragglers had gone home with their rosaries clasped in their hands.

He had no rosary beads, no formal attire; only a beat-up pair of jeans and a t-shirt stretched thin, made of azure cotton that looked dull in comparison to his bright eyes. Had Jason been in range of it, he might have gripped the cross.

“Father,” the boy said, looking disheveled and out of place, “I have a confession.”

The confession, as it turned out, detailed a long and strange account of a man named Bruce Wayne.

Jason had heard of him. Hard not to have at least glimpsed the name, considering he was a local celebrity or something of the sort, living closer to the city limits on the opposite side of Gotham from their quaint little outskirts. He wasn’t sure why either Bruce or Dick bothered to travel such a distance to see one another, but this was not a front on which he could plaster his opinion.

Dick was in no danger with Bruce, else there’d be a public outcry and that was only to begin with. He was relieved to hear there wasn’t some sicko lurking about on the fringes of Dick’s dreams, dragging him into the crevices of Gotham where Jason only occupied with weapon in hand, to take out the trash.

“He’s sending me on a trip,” Dick had finished some seconds before, “to a place called Blüdhaven.” Jason was still mulling that over. Blüdhaven was notoriously scrappy. It was Gotham’s sister city, shrouded in as much smog and crime, but with half the charm. Why not Jump City, or Metropolis? Somewhere kinder to faces like his. “I’m supposed to come back when I’m eighteen—when I can live with him without paperwork involved.”

Jason didn’t appreciate the laissez-faire way in which Mister Wayne dealt with children, but again his voice stuck in his throat at the objection, reminding him of his own temporary horrors. His private demons, the ones that hid in those damned dark recesses of his head. He would not dwell there. Couldn’t afford to.

He could see Dick through the lattice, running a bitten fingertip over his lip, and more than ever he had to ask God why he didn’t let him die in that attack he’d faced as a teenager, the one with the crowbar that made him into this pseudo-devout priest with heavy sins weighing on his heart, the catalyst mere inches from his sweating hands. Like a sinner in a church, he mused. God must have a sense of humor.

Once he realized he’d left a hanging pause in his wake, he took up the mantle he was supposed to bear. “Ah, yes… Well, I wish you the best, my child.” He watched Dick worry his lip, then duck his head to catch his gaze, which Jason would not allow. He hated that he had to ask, “Do you think you’ll ever visit?” He especially hated that it sounded hopeful.

“No,” Dick answered softly—nervously, if Jason had been paying enough attention—as he brought his face nearer to the divider. “Come closer.”

Jason did not have a reason to deny him that, and so he obeyed. Through the latticework, upon which his cheek was pressed, Dick kissed the available skin and murmured a thanks to him in parting. Heaven knows what for.

At least Dick was spreading his wings and flying out of this horrible city, with its horrible people doing horrible things inside of it. Jason wanted to commend whatever god might have been listening for at least one choice well made.

* * *

 

_Just how deep do you believe?_

* * *

 

The most crowded part of Gotham City was always a mess. There was trash on the streets, smog in the air, and rusted chain-link fences closing off each dwelling.

Jason didn’t like being the Red Hood. The point wasn’t that he had to like it, though; the point was to keep the low-down crooks at bay, scare them with gunfire and righteous fury when they fell out of line, which happened often. In cities like this, practically everyone walking was a criminal.

Interestingly, there was some other vigilante stalking through the night nowadays, which made his job a hell of a lot easier. They called him the Batman, but the word was that he didn’t kill people: Methodology Jason didn’t see jack shit in. What was the punishment? What was the point?

He did not like to kill people, either. At least, not always. When people wanted to skin cats for fun or force themselves on lonely women walking to their cars, then he might have enjoyed it just a little. Putting a bullet through their skull, or maybe through the leg first if he needed to have a chat. Last words didn’t ever change a man, but he supposed it was the least he could do to offer them the right.

There weren’t many things Jason would call religious experiences, but when he looked up into the pitch of the night sky and saw the shadow of a man gliding overhead, he thought for the second time in his life that he might be onto something with this Father business after all.

The shape was so black it made the sky look gray. The cape spread out, bled out into pointed tendrils mimicking bat wings, and Jason merely stared as the Batman cleared the feet between rooftops like falling never occurred to him. Close behind, there was another figure, tall and slender with electric blue stripes running along a costume of equal blackness to the Bat’s.

This figure hopped lithely onto the nearest streetlamp, and Jason, caught in the light of another, found himself being examined quizzically by a face he could not see. He knew he had blood splattered across his clothes, knew the gun in his hand was obvious even from this distance, but the man still moved slowly, slinking toward him like a jungle cat approaching with curiosity.

His face and voice were all smiles, even though his hands were flexed into fists at his sides. “Hey there,” he said. “Not looking for trouble, are ya?”

“No,” Jason lied, hating the tinny sound of his voice through the hood. “I think this might be a good place for it, though.”

“You’d be right,” the man said, and the mask around his eyes crinkled with the movement of his brows. “Although, Blüdhaven’s nice this time of year, too.”

Something about the name sent a thrill along Jason’s spine. He hadn’t thought about that hellhole in almost three years. Not since Dick left.

“I’m not a fan of it,” he said, as bitingly as he could manage. “Not a big fan of this place either, actually.”

“Not a fan of the Bat?” the stranger guessed.

“Nah, I don’t mind him,” Jason replied. “Don’t like the kind of people he deals with.”

“That wouldn’t include you, would it?”

Jason had to think for a second. “No. I think we’re both here just to take care of business. No harm done, right?”

The stranger’s smile faded into a frown, and he took an intimidating step forward. A curl of his hair fell into his face, which he wiped back with a calculated movement of one gloved hand. “I dunno, looks to me like _some_ harm was done.” He pointed a finger at the blood on Jason’s coat, his shoes. When he reached up to wipe a smear off his hood, Jason took to the offensive and grabbed his wrist.

“I don’t think you wanna do that,” he said dangerously, seconds before taking off in a sprint.

He was dismayed to find that the other was following him, and, worse, that he was _fast_. He crashed into Jason from behind so hard it winded him, and when he knocked his chin painfully on the asphalt as a result, he was horrified to find that his mask had skittered out of reach.

The stranger got a tough hand on his shoulder and jerked him onto his back.

There was an inch of give—just a moment where he pulled away, stared down at him with his mouth ajar. Jason put a bullet right in his shoulder, knocked him backward, and ran.

This time, he wasn’t followed. He would have to give thanks for that little miracle some other time, though, because it was a long way back to the church.

* * *

 

_I won’t make you kneel for anyone but me._

* * *

 

The following service was long, as was the time he spent dodging questions about his scraped chin. “Just an accident,” he’d say a million times over. “Took a nasty spill, is all.” Never more had he wanted to be alone, and when the last few onlookers finally left, he was ready to take a knee right there and thank the Lord, until a voice behind him struck a nerve.

“Father Todd,” the horribly familiar baritone greeted.

Jason turned and caught sight of Dick Grayson, dressed smartly in gray with what looked to be new shoes, but his hair was as messy as it had been when they’d first met. He looked practically the same as he remembered him, only taller and fuller.

That voice, though, is what made Jason pale, not so much from the difference as the fact that it was unmistakable from last night.

“My child,” he returned, strained, “my, how you’ve grown.”

“Yeah,” Dick agreed distractedly, offering him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He took a moment to consider something. “Not since yesterday, though.”

Jason tilted his face toward the pulpit, examined how the sunset was casting an orange glow across the carpet in his resolve not to look Dick in the eyes. “Right,” he replied mildly, “not since then.”

“Father,” he said beseechingly, making Jason’s heart hurt. He squared his shoulders, ready for the inevitable dismay, the speech, the malice. What he got instead was, “I…have to confess.”

It felt so terribly unnatural to sit in the booth like they had done years before, while Jason was busy tripping over his own feet straight into hell.

“I wasn’t going to come back,” Dick said. He was serious and to-the-point. “But I did, and it was to indulge in sin.”

Jason took a calming breath. He didn’t know who for. “We all have urges to sin.”

“I know,” Dick said, and Jason could see him smiling wanly through the lattice. “I realized something, though. Sometimes you don’t consider what you’re doing to be wrong, but someone else does.”

“What do you mean?”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “Did you know the Batman doesn’t kill?”

“I’ve heard,” Jason found himself whispering back.

There was a long, tired pause before Dick knocked twice on the window. Jason opened it, putting them face to face. Close enough to see the stony look in his eyes. They were just as they always were, disarmingly blue, albeit less lively than before. “The Bat doesn’t kill…” he repeated slowly. He swallowed, looked at Jason straight on. “Do you?”

He didn’t mean to tense, but it was enough to make Dick look away. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said quickly, setting his jaw on edge. Jason watched the muscles tense and untense in succession. “Forgive me.”

“I’m not the one you must ask for forgiveness,” he said.

Dick’s lip curled. “I’m not sure I’ll accept it from anyone else.”

“My child, the Lord is the only one who can—”

“I’ve heard it all, Father,” Dick interrupted, “but God didn’t seem to be around much in Blüdhaven.” When he was met with silence, the fire went out of his voice and was replaced with something worse: Hopelessness. “If you can’t help me, I understand.”

Jason’s chest ached. “Why does it matter to you if I do what you’re asking?”

“If you’ll do what he won’t?”

“Correct.”

“Because I have a _friend_ ,” he said, hissing the last word like a curse, “and I need someone to drop in and say hello for me.”

Jason’s response was tentative, but his interest was piqued. “Who is this friend?”

Dick stared ahead at the confessional door and said, flatly, “He works at the orphanage.”

Jason closed his eyes. _God, please_ , he found himself thinking, _don’t let it be what I think it is_. Calculatedly, he said, “I do make good conversation with people who like children.” He looked up at Dick through his lashes to find him looking back, eyes ablaze.

“Do you? Because he _really_ likes them,” he said through his teeth.

Jason bit his tongue, inhaled deeply through his nose. _Oh, no._ “What is your confession?”

Dick didn’t look away. “I want him dead.”

The church suddenly felt like a tomb, dark and gray with the waning sun and the weight of these words combined.

Father Todd bowed his head, closed his eyes, and flattened his hands against his knees. He knew it wasn’t his place to ask, but he did, regardless. “Has he touched you?”

“This isn’t about what he did to me,” Dick answered without missing a beat. “This is for someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Jason felt the fire of rage in his throat, the telltale twist in his gut that threatened to make him sick. “Dick,” he said, “do you think you deserved it?”

There were short breaths on the other side, and Jason didn’t have to look to know that Dick was fighting tears. He really shouldn’t have mentioned it, but it was right there, dying to be known.

“This is a confessional, isn’t it?” Dick stammered in between hiccup-y little breaths that made Jason want to hold him tightly. “So, yeah, I confess. I led him on.” Jason clenched his teeth. “I told him I fantasized about older men.”

While the story went on, Jason stood and pressed his fist against the door. He knew the other could still see him through the window, knew what he must look like, but he didn’t bother moving. “I told him I came to church every Sunday,” Dick continued, “and so he put me on my knees. Said he’d like to see me pray for forgiveness. What else was I supposed to do, Father? I obeyed.”

Jason pushed the door open and left the booth.

“Father?” Dick called, stepping out and regarding him with red-rimmed eyes.

“What does this friend of yours look like? I believe I ought to…how did you put it? Drop by and say hello.”

Dick took a shaky but relieved breath. “Not tonight,” he said, gripping the edge of the booth so hard his knuckles turned white. “I have one more favor to ask.”

Jason faced him and raised a brow. “Anything.”

It took several full strides across the carpet for Dick to reach him, and that was calculated to leave hardly any room between them. They were so close, in fact, that he could feel the other’s breath fan over his face. Dick tipped his head to the side, analyzed the tense musculature they shared that left Jason holding his own breath, and said, “I want to watch.”

“Watch…” Jason parroted numbly as he fiddled with his cuff. Dick put a hand atop his to still it, then looked at him with brows furrowed over serious eyes.

“I don’t mean to come off as strange,” he said, softer this time. Jason did not miss how his gaze flickered down to his mouth, then back up. “But I’ve spent so long with his taste in my mouth, no matter how often I made myself sick, or how often I brushed it away. I just need to see him gone. What he’s done…” His hands slid up to Jason’s wrist, under the robe’s sleeve, and every inch of skin he touched left goosebumps. “I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

Father Todd had propriety. He had morals, and he had half a brain. He knew that the temptation being laid at his feet was purposeful. Maybe it was some kind of sick test. Dick was only recently full-grown, and he looked so lost, so wrecked, like he’d fall apart if Jason touched him. He was beckoning on sacred ground with his hands grasping the Father’s forearms now, pulling them nearly flush. If they were perhaps an inch closer…

He wondered what variety of wrongdoing he’d have to commit to be worse than he already was; after all he stalked the streets with a gun in hand meant to snuff out life, but he had a _reason_ for that. It wasn’t for him, but for the victims. There was no factoring himself into the life of a man whose childhood had been taken from him, and just thinking about how desperately he wanted what Dick was propositioning made his insides churn.

“I think…” he started slowly, pulling away from Dick and trying in vain to ignore the soft sigh he gave in response. His hands were still stretched toward him, and more than anything he wanted to take them again. “I think I’ve done far too much wrong by you already.”

“How?” Dick asked, throwing childish petulance right in his face and making him cringe. “You never did anything. It isn’t your fault I had those thoughts. It’s that I wanted—” He stopped himself, retracted his hands, checked his tone. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be like this. I shouldn’t put this on you. I just thought that maybe you could…”

“Help?” Jason ventured, voice tired beyond his years. “Help you how?”

“By making me yours instead of his.”

* * *

 

_You trick your lovers that you’re wicked and divine._

* * *

 

Undoubtedly it was something far from holy that pulled Jason forward, still in the robes that broadcast his purity, so he could get his hands on Dick’s hips. He was gripping hard—too hard, like if he didn’t, the man would somehow disappear, perhaps in a flash of blinding light or however Biblical symbols were swept away. Then, maybe, God would proclaim to him in grandeur that he’d failed the test.

When he felt himself being yanked desperately into a kiss, he couldn’t claim insanity or lapse in judgement. Never could have. He wasn’t so pliable for other temptations, but as he’d been preaching for years now, every man had a breaking point.

The apple had been delicious enough to corrupt Eve, and perhaps now Jason could understand why.

Dick kissed to taste, pressed his tongue into Jason’s mouth like he couldn’t contain the urge to take a bite.

Whatever hideous beast hid beneath the surface of his skin overtook him, and with brisk steps he backed Dick up against the altar, the space where thousands before him laid their qualms to heaven above, left behind the dirt in their souls to be devoured by the hungry devil lurking beneath.

All that remained around them were empty pews and watery moonlight coming through the painted window—and then only the two of them, undressing to the tune of creatures chirping outside.

“Father Todd,” Dick said the moment Jason’s lips touched the pulse point in his neck.

“Call me Jason,” he said, and went to task in leaving marks. Spots of purple and red in a blossoming trail of evidence all the way down to his chest.

When Dick said his name, it came out like a prayer. He let Jason lay him back on the polished wood and tipped his head back against it to sigh the syllables upward into the air. His hands curled around the back of Jason’s neck as he descended, mouthing hotly at the skin being granted to him as if he could better offer deliverance with the more ground he covered.

It felt equal parts right and wrong to pin Dick’s hips to the altar and get a mouthful of his pretty pink cock, already swollen, with precum beading at the tip.

Dick’s spine curved upward instantaneously. He white-knuckled the narrow bench the same instant he breathed out a sound of admiration.

Jason couldn’t begin to think of anything but how he tasted, and even though it had been years since he’d done this sort of thing, all he wanted was to swallow the man down until he couldn’t take it and watch him squirm, say his name. He came close enough with effort, and by then Dick was yanking at his hair in warning.

When Jason rose, he raised a fascinated brow at the flush across the other’s face.

“Can’t—don’t want to yet,” Dick half-whispered. “Want you to take me.”

Jason would have been lying if he said he hadn’t wanted to do that the moment he’d laid eyes on him, but they weren’t the most prepared for this situation. Or at least that’s what he thought before Dick reached out and blindly groped for his pants until Jason got the hint. “Good foresight,” he offered with a smile.

Dick’s face went even redder as he shoved the bottle of lubricant at his chest. “Yeah, well, I stepped in here today ready to burst into flames.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.” It wasn’t a contest; if anyone were going to burst into flames, it would most certainly have been Jason. He could have right then, as a matter of fact, and it still would have been worth it, if only for the look on Dick’s face when he got one slick finger inside him, just past the ring of muscle. He was too pretty for his own good, and the way he let himself go pliant so easily made Jason’s chest hurt. He had to remind himself that this man had come to his doorstep for help, and that this was part of it. It might also have been part of Jason’s downfall, but he’d lost track of his sins a long time ago.

He was purposefully slow, deliberate and careful, moving just one finger until Dick finally aimed a breathy laugh at him and encouraged more. “You can’t hurt me,” he assured, and Jason didn’t have the heart to say that, yes, he really could. He wouldn’t dare, but it had kept him up at night before, thinking about how Dick would feel tight and raw around him, screaming until his throat was hoarse and Jason had fucked him so hard he wouldn’t be able to stand without staggering. Now was not the time for that, though, he swore to himself.

And so, the gentleness did not abate, even two fingers later when he was gingerly searching for a particular spot—the one he’d probably never had the luxury of experiencing. It proved him right, if Dick’s startled cry and wide eyes said anything.

Jason rubbed the pads of his fingers against it and watched the muscles in Dick’s thighs go tight. “You can’t just keep…” the latter started breathlessly, then gave up and simply said, “please, _fuck_ me.”

Jason waited to move, no matter how the words stung like an electric shock, sending his libido into overdrive with the desire to take. “I will,” he promised. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Don’t want you to right now,” Dick complained, jutting his hips up to protest the slow drag of Jason’s fingers. Despite his words, every brush of his prostate made him curl his toes and give a shivery little sound from somewhere in his throat that Jason was beginning to get tragically attached to.

“Father,” he said meaningfully, “please.”

It killed him how desperate the question sounded; worse, how he obeyed, lifting Dick into his arms to carry him to bed. When his back hit the sheets, he sighed contentedly, and his hands settled on Jason’s shoulders to pull him into another kiss the moment he got down after him.

Almost mechanically, thighs parted to allow him room. He ran an assuring hand down one of them, urging with the gentlest touch for Dick to hook the leg around his waist, which he did without complaint

Jason could feel heat at the head of his cock, and for a moment had to steel himself. Reminding himself to put the lube on first and go slow was hard, but worth it, because even though Dick had been heavy in his encouragements, he still went dead silent when Jason breached, holding his thigh with one hand and his own weight with the other.

Dick released a soft “ _oh_ ” sound the further Jason slid in. He opened so beautifully around him, went lax with the stroking of fingers on his skin. He threw his head back into the pillows and murmured Jason’s name in a hushed mantra until they were flush and Jason was looking down at him, starry-eyed at the way his eyes were blown to black.

He leaned down on both elbows and put his hands in Dick’s hair. Massaged his scalp and whispered sweet nothings into his ear.

“Father, I have another confession.”

“Yes?” he replied automatically, pulling back just enough to look at him and admire the way he bit his lip nervously before he spoke.

“I dreamt of this almost every night in Blüdhaven. It kept me sane.”

Jason closed his eyes. He tried not to think about him, clumsy and teenage in his handling, touching himself while he thought of _him_ like this. “I was terrified for you when you left,” he admitted at last. “All I could imagine was how horrible that city must have treated you.”

“No worse than here,” Dick offered. He lifted his hands to Jason’s face when he winced and added, “But you’re going to fix that, aren’t you?”

_No_ , he thought grimly. There was no fixing that—no changing the past. But there was this moment now, where he drank in every little flicker of emotion across Dick’s face when he moved inside him, feeling the tense muscle give with near crippling heat until it was all he could think about.

Dick bit his lip, lowered his fingers to feel how Jason stretched him out, fit so neatly inside. It was a quiet assertion for Jason to move that finally convinced him to go faster, if only a little. The tight circles he made with his hips drew out the nicest sounds, but Dick pressed his nails into his shoulders and practically begged him to go faster. “Want it,” he huffed, squeezing his eyes closed. “Come on, wanna be yours.”

As with anything involving Dick Grayson, Jason could not say no to that. He pulled out carefully, almost all the way, and snapped his hips forward, reveling in the shout Dick gave. His mouth was o-shaped, eyes focused so intently on Jason’s until he dared continue the pace, which is when they fell closed almost peacefully with a flutter of dark lashes.

“Oh, god,” Dick moaned, moving so that both legs were wrapped securely around Jason’s waist.

Jason rocked back and forth until the bed began to make noise with the movement, and Dick eclipsed every little creak with sounds of his own. They were so open and unabashed, so soft in the harsh planes of the geometric bedroom that Jason called home. “You feel good,” he sighed, clutched him close to his chest. “So good.”

He ducked down to kiss him again, moved to nip at his neck, growled against his throat and used his hands for leverage so he could really fuck him, aim for the spot that made Dick’s hips shoot off the mattress with a sound caught between a yell and a moan. His mouth opened reflexively when he did, eyes rolling back and head tipped into the puff of pillows beneath him. It was like looking at a work of art, Jason mused.

He sat up on his knees, slid Dick toward him by the hips, and moved with purposeful blunt force. Dick rode him in retaliation, arching his back into a graceful curve and muttering a brief, succinct, “ _Fuck_.” It was the first time Jason had heard him curse, and something in him wanted to hear it again—wanted to ruin his vocabulary so bad he had no choice but to be filthy.

Past the haze of lust, he reminded himself to hold back. “I’m not—” he paused to take a sharp breath, “hurting you, am I?”

“No,” Dick panted in response, twitching his hips in rebellion against the slackening pace. “Please, don’t stop. Never thought this could feel good. Only used to being hurt.”

Jason tried to ignore the white-hot flash of anger in the back of his mind and leaned down to press a kiss to his temple, to whisper in his ear, “He’s not going to hurt you anymore. You’re mine.”

It felt wrong to say, but Dick eagerly accepted his sins of the flesh, mumbling Jason’s name over and over like a broken record. He turned his face into the pillows to cry out when Jason wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking until he canted his hips as far up as they’d go and came with wobbling thighs and the sweetest sound Jason had ever heard.

Dick let him keep moving no matter how brutal, just wrapped his arms around his shoulders to hoist himself up and pant into his ear. “ _Jason_ ,” he said in a feather-light sigh, and it made him more possessive, with desire hitting so strong it turned in his gut, made him groan something unintelligible that might have been a curse, or perhaps Dick’s name.

“Inside,” he breathed, “cum inside me. Want you to.” He put his palms on either side of Jason’s face to pull him in, kissing him dizzy until Jason gasped against his mouth, squeezing his eyes closed at the rush of force, the snap of the pressure that had been coiling in his pelvis.

For a while he didn’t move. He rested his forehead against Dick’s and waited for his breathing to become level again before chancing the opportunity to rise. In the middle of smoothing back his hair, he saw Dick smile in wonderment at him, like he’d personally put the stars in the sky. It was almost painful to see the raw emotion, shining with youthful, hopeful vibrancy in a way Jason remembered possessing once upon a time.

Dick didn’t speak, but looked at him with parted lips and breathed softly into the sacred air they’d marred, had made warm and musky with sex. He wasn’t penitent or even particularly embarrassed, and in fact seemed to find the current workings of their strange relationship to be relaxing, if the quiet sigh he proffered was any indication.

In spite of his internal tug-of-war, Jason found himself smiling. God help him, he really was a wreck; a disaster in love, maybe. He wasn’t sure he wanted to call it that until Dick said it first, on the wings of a yawn and stretch, arms twisting above his head with feline grace and then settling with a sense of decidedness on Jason’s shoulders. He looked suddenly as if he’d misspoke, but didn’t move to take it back.

“I’m sorry,” Jason replied stupidly, blinded by this angelic display of damp, bruised skin before him, attached to a face of concern, or perhaps of expectancy. It was entirely possible it was a mix of both.

“Because…?” Dick eventually dared to ask.

“I love you, too.”

Whether due to its humor or to something else, Dick laughed. A sound that in some respects lifted Jason’s spirits but in others managed to further snuff them out. “You act like that’s so awful,” he said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth it seemed to dawn on him. “Oh,” he amended with hushed words, “I didn’t realize you thought about it like that. I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Jason said. It was the truth. “As far as I’m concerned, this is the least of what I will be repenting for.”

This didn’t seem to faze Dick, who carded his fingers idly through Jason’s hair while he thought of something to say. When something seemed to hit the proper mark, he hesitantly lifted his mouth to Jason’s, waiting patiently only millimeters away until he was met with enthusiasm. “If it helps,” he said, breaking them apart only for the necessary seconds it took to speak, “I think God has some making up to do in my life. He owes me a savior.”

“I’m not much of one,” Jason said. He began stroking Dick’s jaw; it was all he could do to keep his mind off his congregation and what he’d have to return to after this sort of backsliding.

“I beg to differ,” Dick told him seriously, and Jason couldn’t argue with that. Especially seeing him this way, looking more honest than Jason’s ever felt in his entire life.

They fell into a silence steeped in thought, during which time Dick had managed to coax him onto his back so that he could lie on top of him. One of his thighs were slotted in between Jason’s.

He turned the lamp off and left them in darkness in the prefecture, feeling rather than seeing the light shifts in muscle that brought Dick’s lips to his own again, like he was losing something if he didn’t keep kissing him breathless.

The urge to protect was enough for him to make peace with his demons. So what, he thought, if the flames swallowed him up right then? There were soft sheets at his back and warm skin at his front, and nothing, absolutely nothing was going to stop him from breathing in the way Dick moaned against him when Jason took his lip between teeth and nipped as he held him tightly by the ribs.

“It’s not enough,” Dick said, soft voice seeming too loud in the silence of the night. “I still feel his nails in my skin.”

Jason took up the mantle without complaint. He pressed a messy kiss to Dick’s collarbone and said with sincerity, “As many times as it takes.”

* * *

 

_It wasn’t this way all the time._

* * *

 

Jason thought himself to be reasonably adept at slinking through the night, but he guessed the Bat was better, because Dick moved like fluid, and in complete silence. The only thing he said for the better half of their mission was this: “I don’t like guns.”

And so, he humored him by bringing only his knives, and set about sneaking across the orphanage grounds with Dick tailing him so well he might as well have been a shadow.

There wasn’t anything ceremonious about it when they reached the man’s bedroom. Jason supposed he could have said something to dress it up—something about delivering him to God, something about absolving his sins. They would have been lies, but he could have said them nonetheless.

Instead, all he did was clamp a gloved hand around the man’s mouth and stand above him to watch his pupils shrink with the fear he deserved to be feeling. “Shh,” Jason offered, deceptively kindly, “I’m not going to hurt you. This’ll be quick.”

The man struggled in his grip. Behind him, Dick whispered close to his ear. “Shouldn’t we say something? I don’t know, like a verse?”

“You want a Bible verse?” Jason asked, directing the question at the man rather than at Dick. “How’s this? John eleven, verse thirty-five: Jesus wept.”

With nothing more, he dragged the blade across his neck, held him down until the fighting stopped and the color drained from his face. His eyes were still open, but if Jason couldn’t hurt him (at Dick’s insistence), he could at least leave him like that for some semblance of satisfaction.

He stepped back and immediately felt Dick’s shuddering breath in his ear, his hand on his shoulder. Pointedly, he lifted the bloodied blade so the evidence was visible to them both—proof that it was over. “What about the body?” Dick asked, with a catch in his voice.

“Let me take care of that,” Jason answered. “Any other business?”

“A kid here. A boy.”

“The one he…”

The grip on his shoulder tightened. “Yeah.”

“Go get him.”

* * *

 

_Don’t try and fix me._

* * *

 

When all was dealt with, Jason found Dick standing out front, under the tin awning, with a skinny, pale child clutched to his hip. Cautiously, Jason knelt to his level. He tried to work some softness into his voice in spite of the tinny reverberations his mask produced, but he wasn’t quite sure it translated. “Hello,” he greeted, holding out a hand, which the kid shook with hesitance. “My name’s Jason.”

“Tim.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Tim.”

The boy’s gaze was fixed somewhere off in space; all he offered in response to these words was a tired and distracted, “Yeah.”

“We came too late tonight,” Dick said, baring his teeth. When Jason realized what he meant, he silently stored away his desire to mutilate a corpse and instead brushed Tim’s overgrown bangs back from his face.

“He’s gone,” he assured him, “and whatever he’s done to you will follow him into hell.”

Dick hoisted Tim onto his hip despite the fact he had to be at least twelve years old, not that his weight made him look it. “I’m taking him to Bruce,” he said meaningfully, indicating that he’d been harboring this idea for some time now. “He’ll be safe there.”

“What about you?” Jason asked, prepared for distance at best and total desertion at worst. For something he deserved.

What he got instead was a lovely smile and shining, earnest eyes. “He only needs so many proteges.”

“We’re always accepting altar boys,” Jason half-joked, feeling something crackle and burn in his chest when Dick slid his free arm around his waist.

“Color me interested.”

Every wrong he’d ever done seemed to fade away with the innocent press of Dick’s lips to the metal of his mask, and he realized with a start that this was a life sentence, indeed. “Be safe,” he said, taking a step back to gather his wits. “Guess I’ll see you around, kid.” He directed this at Tim. “Mister Wayne will make sure no one ever touches you again.”

“And if they try, God help them,” Dick said with a voice like fire.

“He’d better, before I do it first,” Jason finished.

 Dick hummed to the affirmative. “See you around, eh?”

“I pray I do.” Jason unhooked the hood, ran a hand through his hair, and watched Tim give him a cautious once-over before Dick obscured his vision to kiss the corner of his mouth.

For his part, he lifted his free hand to Dick’s jaw and pulled him into a proper one. “Now get lost, sugar,” he said in mock annoyance, reaffixing his mask and then retracting into the shadows of the alley. “I shouldn’t be seen lurking around with good little church boys like you in the middle of the night.”

Dick’s mouth opened like he wanted to laugh, but thought better of it. Jason vanished from sight with an echoing chuckle, which seemed to remain long after he’d gone.

* * *

 

_Inside you’re ugly, you’re ugly like me._

* * *

 

EPILOGUE.

When golden daylight began filtering in through the window, he knew he ought to rise from bed. There would be a rabble below in a couple of hours, as the church held mass at nine, and Jason couldn’t be late for that even if he wanted to be. And he _did_ want to be, because he was rather occupied with Dick’s sleep-hazed mouth sucking meaningfully at his collarbone, while the leg he had draped over Jason’s middle tightened to draw him closer.

“Too early, my love,” he mumbled, but even as he said it he was turning onto his side to press them chest-to-chest and reaching down to sink his fingertips into the muscle of Dick’s bare thigh.

“You can repent while you lead mass,” Dick joked, with a conspiratorial roll of his hips.

“You’re incorrigible,” Jason replied.

“Says you,” he argued, veering off into a soft, fluttery moan when Jason curled his fingers around the base of his cock and rewarded him with gentle strokes.

“Yeah, says me.” He let go prematurely, drawing a frustrated groan from the other until he made up for it by pressing two fingers inside him, stroking gently where he’d already made a considerable mess not too many hours before.

“A little sore,” Dick muttered, despite the fact he was rocking his hips down onto him.

“All right.” Jason tipped him onto his back and moved with the intent of oral, until Dick threaded his fingers through his hair and yanked him up into a kiss instead.

When they broke apart, he offered sweetly, “Let me.”

“If you’d like.” Jason let him switch their positions and stretched his arms above his head comfortably.

“I’d like,” Dick answered, lowering his mouth to Jason’s cock to give it a coquettish lick and watch with satisfaction as it twitched in response.

“Incorrigible,” Jason repeated without venom. He peered down at him, starkly tan amid tangled white sheets, bathed in morning light as he wrapped his lips around him, took him down nice and slow. He let a satisfied moan spill. “Bless that mouth.”

Dick pulled off and grinned like a cat that caught the canary. “I can think of a way you might, Father.”

“Don’t even start,” Jason groaned. He covered his face with one hand to hide the flush Dick already knew damn well was there. “It’s _Sunday,_ for Christ’s sake.”

Dick had in fact already started, and did not give any indication of letting up. “Please? Won’t you, Father Todd?” he breathed, darting his tongue out to taste him. “I don’t think Hail Marys are going to be enough to save my sinful soul this time.”

“What do you want from me?” Jason nearly whined, getting a hand in Dick’s hair and tugging suggestively. “Bible verses?” He regretted the words instantly, because Dick was crawling up his torso now to reach into the dresser drawer at their bedside. “You’re kidding,” he said, watching with a measure of disbelief as he fished out the lubricant and got Jason slicked up with one hand.

“Totally not kidding.” Dick grasped Jason’s forearms and slid down onto him like he was made to fit, letting his mouth hang open in the way he knew Jason couldn’t resist.

“Okay, _Jesus_. Do not—” he swallowed hard, closed his eyes, tried again: “Do not let anyone look down on you because you’re young…”

“Bet you think you’re real cute,” Dick teased, starting a rhythm.

Jason dutifully ignored the comment. “But set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity…” He watched Dick bounce on top of him, saw his pupils blow wide as he looked down at him with lips parted.

“Faith and purity,” he parroted, flattening his palms on Jason’s chest. “Keep going.”

“The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

“Good, good. More…”

“I don’t think—” Jason jerked his hips upward to meet Dick’s, watched those blue eyes roll back for him, and managed to ground out, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will— _Fuck_.”

“Don’t think that’s how that one goes,” Dick said, but the jab lost its traction somewhere along the way when he moaned. He was letting Jason pull him down hard with every thrust now, and he was by no means a quiet rider.

Jason flipped them over again, remounting and gritting his teeth at the sweet keen Dick gave at the movement. “Don’t care,” he said at last. He held Dick’s legs up by the backs of his knees, admired how his calves bounced with every thrust and smiled down at him winningly when his eyes screwed closed.

“Jason,” he begged, clutching the pillows in his fists.

He slowed down for only a second, but Dick amended instantly. “ _Father_. I’m sorry Father Todd, I have—I’ve—fuck, _oh_ , I have _sinned._ ”

He never got tired of watching Dick cum, biting his bottom lip to hell and shaking with the effort of arching his back to pull him deeper, riding it out until he collapsed against the sheets and went pliant in his grip. Jason never lasted long after that; just seeing him lie there, looking at him in reverence, was a blessing on its own.

Dick made a soft sound in the back of his throat when Jason released inside him, and then drew his arms up to wrap lazily around his neck. “Love you,” he panted.

Jason offered an emphatic, “ _Jesus_.”

“Think you just missed him.” Dick gave him a cheeky grin, which Jason couldn’t help but return.

“Love you, too,” he said at last. Then, for good measure, ruffled his hair and added, “Brat.”


End file.
